You think it's easy to run Lawt Sidney University when the seven board members are dwarfs?
Higher Ed is six feet nine inch Edward Appleton, president of Lawt Sidney - an anagram for Walt Disney - University. among the seven Sidney U. board members are Grumpy Marcus Elay (Yale spelled backwards), Feliz gonzalez a crane operator on the San Diego docks, and Doc Rivera, head Veteranarian at the Tijuana Bull ring. Higher Ed has his hands full dealing with, among other things, Deans such as Dangerous Dan Stonewood who recites Robert Service ballads in his head during faculty meetings. But besides all the satirical zaniness, the novel Higher Ed offers thoughts on some serious issues facing modern society.
Excerpt
The president, Dr. Edward Appleton, all six feet nine inches of him . . . Higher Ed they called him, cursed softly under his breath, then jumped to his feet and shouted, "Merde! Merde! Merde! Merde!"
Higher Ed was a music man, proud holder of a Ph.D. in music from the University of Paris, writing his dissertation on the subject of tragedy in Italian opera. Higher Ed knew tragedy when he saw it, and right now it was staring him in the face. He slammed down the receiver of the telephone, and slumped back in his chair. Sidney University's star fullback, "House" Finch, had just been arrested for petty theft and receiving stolen goods, and the big game with Southern California was only four days off. If this wasn't a tragedy about to happen, what else could you call it? Someone should put it to music.
Determined to confront the hazy memories of his troubled youth, Oliver Matthews, a retired detective and confirmed bachelor, returns to the picturesque town of Henley-on-Thames for the first time in years.
A teenage boy struggling with the coming-of-age issues of sexuality, religion, and peer approval is overwhelmed, but soldiers on. After several years, he comes to understand the family forces that have left him so deeply troubled, and the process of
